Bottke received his undergraduate degrees, in physics and astrophysics, at the University of Minnesota in 1988.
In 1995, he received his PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona for research on asteroid dynamics.
He has published extensively on the importance of tidal disruption and the Yarkovsky and YORP effects on the physical structure and orbits of asteroids, and the early solar system, particularly the Late Heavy Bombardment.
They date the event based on the current orbits of Baptistina family members, and then compute the orbital evolution of smaller (few-km) objects produced in the collision, and conclude that the Chicxulub impact or was one such object.
They also propose that Tycho crater on the Moon was created by an object produced in the same collision.